Local Law 86 mainstreams sustainable building practices for New York City's municipal projects

This year, the City of New York is spending over $600 million of its $11 billion municipal budget on energy for its buildings. The city typically owns its buildings for fifty to a hundred years and has long seen the potential for significant returns on investments in "green design." By October 2005, the city had enough of an answer to the perennial question of what appropriate green design is to pass Local Law 86, a law that governs the greening of city-owned buildings and new municipal construction such as libraries, museums, firehouses, clinics, jails and parking garages. In the next few years, we'll be seeing the impact of that law on new city buildings and renovation projects.

Rather than breaking new ground in the definition of sustainable design, LL86 is supporting sustainable practices and performance set out in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED standards, and stipulates that nearly all projects achieve at least a LEED Silver rating. One of the greenest buildings the DDC has ever built will open in 2007: the Reception and Administration Building at the Queens Botanical Garden, designed by BKSK Architects. It is projected to be LEED Platinum rated, and to use forty-eight percent less energy than a code-compliant building not subject to LL86.

The Department of Design and Construction's Director of Sustainable Design, John S. Krieble, notes that the law is intended to help private firms and city agencies collaborate efficiently. By tapping into LEED's procedures, the DDC makes use of a language already common to architects. It establishes an administrative process with firm milestones toward green goals. LL86 requires that architects applying for city projects have experience with the LEED system. It also requires them to submit a LEED plan rated by the USGBC and city-designed reporting documents along a specific timeline. While ideas of what green means will continue to evolve, LL86 establishes a baseline that ensures the green goals set by the USGBC are being upheld.